Business Relationships – Crucibles for Change

In our personal life and in our alliances the following statement is true:

Growth happens in relationship.

It is actually in our most difficult relationships where the need to change first becomes apparent. It is in our deepest relationships where our greatest growth is accomplished. All we really have is relationship – with others, with ourselves, and with the Universe.

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Strategic Alliances – Most Challenging

Given strategic alliances are about long-term value-creation, they are the most difficult and the deepest type of relationship in the world of business. They are more challenging than value-exchange relationships, like sales or procurement. And more challenging than relationships focused on value-extraction (e.g., managing down or selling off a business).

What makes the long-term value-creation required in strategic alliances so difficult? Consider how creation itself occurs. It requires an open atmosphere of love, abundance, and high trust. In the world of business the climate is often one of fear, scarcity, and a lack of trust.

Add to this the long-term nature of alliances and the challenge becomes nearly impossible. A state of abundance is required for healthy negotiation, collaboration, and creation. However, at the end of the creative cycle the alliance’s value has to be divided up. For example, the partners need to divide up a collaboratively created solution. This requires the alliance to enter into a state of scarcity and afterwards return back to a state of abundance. This transition from scarcity back into abundance is extraordinarily difficult, arguably it is impossible.

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Businesses’ Crucible

Lessons learned in strategic alliances
can be applied to other types of business relationships.

Given strategic alliances are businesses’ most challenging form of relationship, this is where the need for change is most obvious and where the deepest change is accomplished. It is here where the awakening of business, where businesses’ consciousness first happens. In fact, it is because of “relationship” that alliances are strategic.

“Business needs to become more conscious. The need for change is most evident in our most challenging relationships, strategic alliances. Alliance managers would benefit greatly from embodying the principles in Joe’s book, and then leading the way for businesses and the world to awaken.”– Raj Sisodia – founder, Conscious Capitalism Institute; co-author of Firms of Endearment; and Professor of Marketing, Bentley University; Boston, MA

The change we are talking about is actually a strategic imperative. This is because strategic alliances are actually “life and death” matters. Really.

My value to you is to help affect positive change in your strategic alliance, which can then be leveraged throughout your company.